Abstract
This article reviews empirical scholarship on preventable actual causes of death—namely, physical activity, food, and traffic-induced injury–related built environment interventions that lead to health improvements. A systems perspective built on the ecological health model is offered that addresses social determinants of health- and place-based contexts. In doing so, this article offers examples of upstream approaches to address the actual causes of death and ends with guidance on planning practice, research, and teaching organized around the research divisions of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 261-281 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Journal of Planning Literature |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 21 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Design and health curricula in higher education have grown exponentially; with just one cross-disciplinary course in 2003, there are now fifteen such courses taught across the United States as of 2013 ( bephc.gatech.edu ). The courses focus, variously, on Planning and Public Health Foundations, Natural and Built Environments, Vulnerable Populations and Health Disparities, and Health Policy and Global Impacts. They enroll students from a variety of disciplines including public health, planning, urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, and public policy ( Botchwey et al. 2009 ). Other, allied courses can include modules or assignments to introduce this topic to students without taking up a full semester. A number of resources are available to guide instruction in this area, catalogued on www.bephc.gatech.edu . A sustainable approach to strengthening planners’ and designers’ roles in bridging health and the built environment requires a three-pronged effort including practice, research, and teaching. Scholarship using actual causes of death perspective provides the basis for upstream policies and programs that integrate the rapidly expanding research base in urban planning and design. Research, teaching, and practice in planning and health could each benefit from a reframing that includes the social–ecological framework in order to better address the interaction and independence of variables that increase the influence of the prevailing actual causes of death: poor diet, physical inactivity, and motor vehicle injury. To design places that address the socioeconomic determinants of health is within the ability of planners and designers of the built environment. In turn, creating healthy places itself also provides the evidence with which to justify further good planning. The planning disciplines of urban design, transportation, and land use have been shown to impact PA and, thus, directly improve public health. Likewise, planning has a direct impact on disease and obesity prevention due to its influence over access to healthy food. Finally, no field other than planning or civil engineering can have as great an impact on a population’s mortality and personal injuries in the area of transportation. Thus, built environment professionals have a unique and crucial role to play in joining their particular knowledge bases and abilities to the work being done by the public health field. By making these connections explicit, working from a systems-focused actual causes of death perspective will allow us to foster livable and healthy places, and, most importantly, healthy people. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The authors would like to thank the University of Virginia Center for Design and Health for supporting the research for this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014, © The Author(s) 2014.
Keywords
- community development
- food system
- health
- quality of life
- transportation
- urban form
